Passion meets Creativity meets Innovation: The SmallHD Story

Today's video is a bit longer than usual but it's a terrific story about identifying a need in your industry and producing a solution. Back in 2007, small time video producers and high school friends, Wes Phillips and Dale Backus (who were barely in their twenties), decided to submit an ad for the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, which gives consumers the chance to make a commercial that will air during the Super Bowl and be seen in front of 100 million people. Their entry, "Live the Flavor", shot over a few days and a few bucks, ended up being chosen as the winner.

They did it again in 2010 with "Underdog" and took their winnings from both spots to launch SmallHD, an innovative on-camera monitor company. During their Doritos shoots, the team found it frustrating that they couldn't find a small, affordable monitor to hook up to their cameras and computers that would show quality high-definition video.

Necessity is the mother of invention, yes?

Lydia Hurlbut of the popular filmmaker site Hurlbut Visuals pitched the idea of documenting "The SmallHD Story" to Los Angeles based director/cinematographer Julien Lasseur who then traveled to North Carolina to produce the video. It's a rather remarkable story. A story any entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur should really enjoy.

Having purchased the Panasonic GH2 as my first DSLR camera a little more than a year ago, I was also looking for an affordable, high quality monitor for my own productions. After pouring through monitor after monitor, a number of excellent reviews led me to SmallHD where I purchased their DP4 monitor (I purchased the DP4 bundle which comes with their excellent EVF viewfinder and was just too good a deal to pass up). It's a terrific monitor and has quickly become the envy of every videographer I've worked with due to it's small size and robust features. I'm now looking at their AC7 7" model for my other GH2.

And no, SmallHD didn't pay me a nickel for this post. I'm just a very satisfied customer who stumbled upon this video, enjoyed it, and decided to share it - because that's just the kind of guy I am. Of course, if they actually decide to pay me a nickel, I'll probably take it.